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THE TEAM
CONTACT
This Series, of which 249 titles were published, known as "separatas verdes" [“green separatas”] (in allusion to the colour of the cover), consisted of a separate issue of articles published in national and international journals, mainly on Nautical Cartography and Nautical History; it would become one of the Portuguese publication collections with the greatest international projection. The cluster would come to be called Centro [Centre], and then Centro de Estudos de História e Cartografia Antiga [Centre for the Study of Ancient History and Cartography], until its incorporation into the Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical [Tropical Scientific Research Institute ] at the Universidade de Lisboa [University of Lisbon] in 2015.
While Avelino Teixeira da Mota directed the Lisbon branch, Armando Cortesão and Luís de Albuquerque were in charge of its Coimbra counterpart. They had a common interest in the History of the Art of Navigation, although one was more inclined towards Nautical Cartography and the other towards Nautical Science itself. Their collaboration was close but critical, as they were separated by profoundly divergent views on key aspects of the History of Portuguese Expansion: the issue of the policy of secrecy is an example, of which Cortesão was a staunch defender, as was his brother Jaime, while Albuquerque was more critical, not one to trifle with fantasies, no matter how creative, which was more in line with the intervention of Duarte Leite on the matter. However, in the very early days of the Cluster's activity, he gave a speech in praise of the Presenter, Professor João Carrington Simões da Costa, at Armando Cortesão' s Doctorate Honoris Causa ceremony.
It was against this backdrop that Luís de Albuquerque took three of the most important steps in his career: the publication of the books on seamanship, which will be addressed further ahead, his collaboration in the publication of the Obras Completas [Complete Works] of D. João de Castro, and the organisation of the [I] Reunião Internacional de História da Náutica International [ First International Meeting on the History of Nautical Science].
The work of D. João de Castro and his studies on the Earth's magnetism were continuously the object of his attention and of several works, thereby following that the idealisation of the edition of the Obras was naturally his, despite being co-signed by Armando Cortesão, who is likely to have had some degree of participation in the first two volumes.
